Abstract
Chapter 5 showed how the USSR has developed impressive nuclear and conventional military capabilities to support its war aims against what it perceives as a range of credible military contingencies. There is more, of course, to Soviet military power than the development of a military machine for ultimate use in war. Military power is used for projecting influence overseas, for underpinning the Soviet Union’s Superpower status, and for bringing about through the use of force — or the threat of its use — developments favourable to Soviet state interests.
the very knowledge of a Soviet military presence in an area in which a conflict situation is developing may serve to restrain the imperialists.
Colonel V. M. Kulish1
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Colonel V. M. Kulish, Voyennaya Sila i Mezhdunarodnyye Otnosheniya (Moscow, 1972) (translated as Military Force and International Relations (Arlington, Va: Joint Publications Research Service, JPRS 58947, 1973)) p. 21.
A. Sergiyev, ‘Leninism on the Correlation of Forces as a Factor of International Relations’, International Affairs, May 1975, p. 101.
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, interview in International Herald Tribune, 26 January 1976.
Robert Legvold, ‘The Concept of Power and Security in Soviet History’, in Christoph Bertram (ed.), Prospects of Soviet Power in the 1980s (London: Macmillan, 1980) p. 11.
Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Red Star on the Nile: The Soviet-Egyptian Influence Relationship Since the June War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977) p. xiv.
Joseph L. Nogee, ‘The Soviet Union in the Third World: Successes and Failures’, in Robert H. Donaldson (ed.), The Soviet Union in the Third World: Successes and Failures (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981) p. 450.
Ibid.
Stephen S. Kaplan et al, Diplomacy of Power: Soviet Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1981) p. 15.
Ibid.
Seweryn Bialer, ‘Soviet Foreign Policy: Sources, Perceptions, Trends’, in Seweryn Bialer (ed.), The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981) pp. 426–7.
Major-General A. S. Milovidov and Colonel V. G. Kozlov (eds), Filosofskoe Nasledie V. I. Lenina i Problemy Sovremennoi Voiny (The Philosophical Heritage of V. I. Lenin and Problems of Contemporary War) (Moscow, 1972) p. 139.
Ibid.
Major-General S. Kozlov, Major-General Y. Sulimov, Major-General N. Sushko, et al, Marxism-Leninism on War and Army (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972) p. 212.
Ibid.
Whence the Threat to Peace?, (Moscow, USSR Ministry of Defence, 1982) p. 77.
Seweryn Bialer, ‘The Harsh Decade: Soviet Policies in the 1980s’, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1981, p. 1018.
Colonel K. A. Vorobyev, Vooruzhennyye Sily Razvitovo Sotsialisticheskovo Obshchestva (Armed Forces of a Developed Socialist Society) (Voenizdat, Moscow, 1980) p. 101.
Ibid., p. 95.
Admiral S. G. Gorshkov, Morskaya Moshch Gosudarstva (Voenizdat, Moscow, 1976) (translated as The Sea Power of the State (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979)) p. 229.
Ibid., p. 252.
Ibid., p. 280.
S. Iu. Witte, Vospominaniia (Memoirs), vol. 2 (Moscow 1960) p. 380.
I. S. Kardashev, Internatsional’nyi Dolg Vooruzhonnykh Sil SSSR (The International Duty of the Armed Forces of the USSR) (Moscow: Ministry of Defence, 1960) passim.
Malcolm Mackintosh, ‘Soviet Foreign and Defense Policy: A Global View’, in Lawrence L. Whetten (ed.), The Political Implications of Soviet Military Power, (London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1977) p. 28.
Dennis M. Gormley, ‘The Direction and Pace of Soviet Force Projection Capabilities’, Survival, November/December 1982, p. 266.
Ibid., p. 275.
Ibid., p. 274.
Report No 97-58 to Accompany Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for FY 1982, Committee on Armed Services, Senate of the United States (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1981) p. 36.
R. J. Vincent, Military Power and Political Influence: The Soviet Union and Western Europe, Adelphi Paper no. 119 (London: IISS, 1975) p. 4.
David D. Finley, ‘Conventional Arms in Soviet Foreign Policy’, World Politics, October 1980, p. 31.
Vernon V. Aspaturian, ‘Soviet Global Power and the Correlation of Forces’, Problems of Communism, May–June 1980, p. 3.
L. I. Brezhnev, Pravda, 22 March 1977.
Robert H. Donaldson, The Soviet-Indian Alignment: Quest for Influence, Monograph Series in World Affairs, vol. 16, no 3–4 (Denver, Colorado: University of Denver, 1979).
See Bradford Dismukes and James M. McConnell (eds), Soviet Naval Diplomacy (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979), esp. chs 3, 4.
Richard E. Neustadt and Graham T. Allison, ‘Afterword’, in Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971) p. 113.
Rebecca V. Strode and Colin S. Gray, ‘The Imperial Dimension of Soviet Military Power’, Problems of Communism, November–December 1981, p. 15.
Stanley Hoffman, ‘Muscle and Brains’, Foreign Policy, Winter 1979–80, p. 5.
Malcolm Mackintosh, ‘The Soviet Military: Influence on Foreign Policy’, Problems of Communism, September–October 1973, p. 12.
Dimitri K. Simes, ‘Disciplining Soviet Power’, Foreign Policy, Summer 1981, p. 46.
Colin S. Gray, ‘The Most Dangerous Decade: Historic Mission, Legitimacy and Dynamics of the Soviet Empire in the 1980s’, Orbis, Spring 1981, p. 20.
Stephen T. Hosmer and Thomas W. Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice toward Third World Conflict (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1982) passim.
Hannes Adomeit, Soviet Risk-Taking and Crisis Behaviour: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982) pp. 58–9, 337–40.
Jan F. Triska and David D. Finley, Soviet Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1968) p. 346.
Christoph Bertram, ‘Introduction’, in Bertram (ed.), Prospects of Soviet Power, p. 3.
Seweryn Bialer, ‘The Soviet Union and the West in the 1980s: Detente, Containment, or Confrontation?’, Orbis, Spring 1983, p. 42.
Robert A. Scalapino, ‘The Case for Complexity’, in Robert E. Osgood, Containment, Soviet Behaviour and Grand Strategy (Berkeley, California: University of California Institute of International Studies, 1981) p. 64.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1988 International Institute for Strategic Studies
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dibb, P. (1988). Soviet Military Power and Global Influence. In: The Soviet Union. Studies in International Security. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19349-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19349-3_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-47055-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-19349-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)